The Denny Hill regrade was a project that took many years and and $2.25 million dollars to complete. The first phase (1898-1899) leveled 1st Avenue from Pine Street to Denny Way. The second phase, during which the photographs in this collection were taken, regraded the area from 2nd to 5th Avenues between Pike and Cedar Streets. It took 11 years for this phase to be completed. In this phase, more than five million cubic yards of dirt were sluiced into Elliott Bay. The avenues and streets were lowered to a gradient no more than 5%, and 4th and 5th Avenues were widened. The Denny Hill regrade was not fully completed until the 1930s, when the last embankment along 5th Avenue was removed.